Performativity

At Last — a 

new Body..!!

A New Body, 

at Last.

Cut to Tara's room. 

Willow: 

I'm sorry you're feeling all blechy. 

But we'll get together with Buffy another time. 

Sometime soon. I think you'll really like her. 

[Tara sighs.] 

Tara: 

She's not your friend. 

Willow: 

I may have overestimated 

the "you liking her" factor. 

Tara: 

No, no. I mean, I don't... 

[sighs] I don't think she's...her. 

Willow: 

You lost me. 

Tara: 

Well, umph, a person's energy 

has a flow, a unity. 

[sigh] Buffy's was [sigh] 

was fragmented. 

It-it grated, like something forced 

in where it doesn't belong. 

Plus, she was, um, [sigh]she 

was kind of mean. [heh] 

Willow: 

So you think Buffy's not herself? Like 

she's been possessed or something? 

Tara: [sigh] 

I'm not sure. 

Willow: 

You didn't sense a hyena 

energy at all, did you? 

Because hyena possession 

is just...unpleasant. 

Tara: 

[umph] Do you have 

anything of hers? 

Willow: 

Of Buffy's? Uhhhh. 

Oh! This ring. 

Tara: 

I-I think there's a way 

we can, hmm... 

[reaches for book] 

The passage to the nether realm. 

There-there's a ritual. 

If you can find Buffy there, 

you should be able to see. 

Willow: 

If it'll help her. 

[Tara sighs.] 

Willow: 

What? 

Tara: 

Well, the nether realm exists 

beyond the physical world. 

Accessing it is... I-it-it's kind 

of like astral projection. 

It's very intense. I'd have to be 

your anchor, keep you 

on this plane. 

Willow [nods]: 

I Trust You. 

Tara: 

It-it's not like anything 

that we've ever-- 

Willow [smiles]: 

I Trust you. 

ENGL 300 - Lecture 23 - 

Queer Theory and Gender Performativity

Chapter 1. Introduction to Judith Butler: What Is Sexuality? [00:00:00]

Professor Paul Fry: Now, I don’t think it’s ever happened to me before – although it might have but I can’t recall its having happened–  that I found myself lecturing on a person who had lectured yesterday here at Yale, but that’s what happened in this case. You read – let’s just call it – the facetious article on the lecture in The Daily News this morning. Some of you may actually have been in attendance. I unfortunately could not be, but as it happened I ran into her later in the evening and talked to some of her colleagues about what she’d said, so I do have a certain sense of what went on.

In any case, as to what went on, I’m going to be talking today about the slipperiest intellectual phenomenon in her essay having to do with what she calls “psychic excess,” the charge or excess from The Unconscious which in some measure unsettles even that which can be performed. 

We perform Identity, we perform our subjectivity, we perform gender in all the ways that we’ll be discussing in this lecture, but beyond what we can perform there is “sexuality,” which I’m going to be turning to in a minute. 

This has something to do with the authentic realm of The Unconscious from which it emerges. What Butler did in her lecture yesterday was to return to the psychoanalytic aspect of the essay that you read for today, emphasizing particularly the work of Lacan’s disciple, Jean Laplanche, and developing the ways in which sexuality is something that belongs in a dimension that exceeds and is less accessible than those more coded concepts that we think of as gender or as identity in general. 

So conveniently enough, for those of you who did attend her lecture yesterday, in many ways she really did return to the issues that concerned her at the period of her career when she wrote Gender Trouble and when she wrote the essay that you’ve read for today.

All right. Now I do want to begin with what ought to be An Innocent Question. Surely we’re entitled to an answer to this question, and the question is : What is Sexuality? 

Now of course you may be given pause– especially if you’ve got an ear fine-tuned to jargon–you may be given pause by the very word ”sexuality,” which is obviously relatively recent in the language. 

People didn’t used to talk about 'Sexuality'. They talked about sex, which seems somehow more straightforward, but “sexuality” is a term which is not only pervasive in cultural thought but also has a certain privilege among other ways of describing that aspect of our lives. 

In other words, there is something authentic, as I’ve already begun to suggest, about our sexuality, something more authentic about that than the sorts of aspects of ourselves that we can and do perform. 

That’s Butler’s argument, and it’s an interesting starting point, but it’s not yet, or perhaps not at all, an answer to the question, “What is Sexuality?”

Chapter 2. Foucault and the Deployment of Alliance [00:03:46]

Now for Foucault sexuality is arguably something like desired and experienced bodily pleasure, but the problem in Foucault is that this pleasure is always orchestrated by a set of factors that surround it, a very complicated set of factors which is articulated perhaps best on page 1634 in his text, the lower right-hand column. 

He’s talking about the difference between and the interaction between what he calls the “deployment of alliance” and the “deployment of”–our word–“sexuality.” 

I want to read this passage and then comment on it briefly: “In a word [and it’s of course not in a word; it’s in several words], the deployment of alliance is attuned to a homeostasis of the social body…” 

The deployment of alliance is the way in which, in a given culture, the nuclear reproductive unit is defined, typically as The “Family,” but The Family in itself changes in its nature and its structure. 

The way in which The Family is viewed, the sorts of activities that are supposed to take place and not take place in The Family–because Foucault lays a certain amount of stress on incest and the atmospheric threat of incest –the sorts of things that go on in the family and are surrounded by certain kinds of discourse conveying knowledge–and we’ll come back to the latter part of that sentence–all have to do with the deployment of Alliance. 

On the other hand, the deployment of Sexuality we understand as the way in which whatever this thing is that we’re trying to define is talked about–and therefore not by any state apparatus or actual legal system necessarily–but nevertheless simply by the prevalence and force of various sorts of knowledge police.

Okay. To continue the passage:

"In a word, the deployment of Alliance is attuned to a homeostasis [or a regularization; that’s what he means by “homeostasis”] of the social body, which it has the function of maintaining; whence its privileged link with the law [that is to say, The Law tells us all sorts of things about The Family – including whether or not there can be gay marriage, just incidentally : I’ll come back to that in a minute]; whence too the fact that the important phase for it is “reproduction.” 

The Deployment of Sexuality has its reason for being, not in reproducing itself, but in proliferating, innovating, annexing, creating, and penetrating bodies in an increasingly detailed way, and in controlling populations in an increasingly comprehensive way.

What he’s saying is, among other things, that a deployment of sexuality, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – these deployments aren’t meant somehow or another to be terroristic regimes–a deployment of sexuality, which for example favoured forms of sexuality such as birth control or homosexuality, would certainly be a means of controlling reproduction. Just in that degree, the deployment of sexuality could be seen as subtly or not so subtly at odds with the deployment of alliance, alliance, The Purpose of reproduction or at least takes as its primary sign, as Foucault suggests, the importance, the centrality, to a given culture–or sociobiological system, if you will – of reproduction. 

These are the ways in which the deployment of alliance and the deployment of sexuality converge, don’t converge, and conflict with each other. But in all of these ways, we keep seeing this concept of sexuality; but, as I say, it continues to be somewhat elusive what precisely it is.

Just to bracket that for the moment, let me make another comment or two on the concepts in the passage that I have just read. 

Let’s say once and for all at the outset that the central idea in Foucault’s text, the idea which he continues to develop throughout the three volumes on The History of Sexuality – the central idea is this idea of “Power” as something other than that which is enforced through legal, policing or State apparatus means. 

This is Power which is enforced as a circulation or distribution of knowledge, which is discursive in nature, and which enforces its norms for all of us, for betteror for worse – because discourse can release and can constitute sites of resistance as well as oppress – which, for better or worse, circulates among us ideas that are in a certain sense governing ideas about whatever it is that’s in question, in this case, obviously, sexuality. 

Foucault calls this, sometimes hyphenating it, “Power-Knowledge.”

This is absolutely The Central Idea in late Foucault. I introduced it, you remember, last time in talking about Said. I come back to it now as that which really governs – and guides you through – The Whole Text of Foucault : 

The Distinction between Power as it’s traditionally understood, as Authoritative – as sort of top-down, coming from above, imposed on us by Law, by The Police, by whatever Establishment of that kind there might be – 

The distinction between Power of that kind and Power which is simply the way in which Knowledge – 

(....and ‘knowledge’ is not, by the way, necessarily a good word, it’s not necessarily knowledge of The Truth [ so, 'Information', then -- qualitatively undifferentiated Raw Data ] ) – 

The way in which Knowledge circulates and imposes its effects on Us, Our Behaviour, The Way We are or the way at least that We Think We Are – the way in which we “perform,” in Butler’s term. All of that in Foucault is to be understood as an effect of Power-Knowledge.

Now notice, however, in terms of Our Question – What is Sexuality? – that Foucault is being quite coy. 

He’s talking about Sexuality but he’s not talking about it in itself, whatever it “in itself” might be. 

He’s talking about the deployment of it, that is to say the way in which power-knowledge constructs it, makes it visible, makes it available to us, and makes it a channel through which desire can get itself expressed, but a channel which is still not necessarily in and of itself that natural thing that we look for and long for and continue to seek: the nature of sexuality. 

So when the emphasis in Foucault’s discussion is really on deployment, that is, the way in which alliance–the family, whatever the nuclear social structure might be–or sexuality–whatever it is that gets itself expressed as desire–the way in which these matters, these aspects of our lives, can be deployed, we still aren’t necessarily talking about the thing in itself. 

Foucault isn’t an anthropologist. 

He’s not talking about The Family in itself either. He’s talking about the way in which a basic concept of alliance out of which reproduction arises and gets itself channeled can be deployed, and understood as manipulated by, the circulation of Power-Knowledge.

The issue of gay marriage is very interestingly, by the way, between the concepts of the deployment of alliance and the deployment of sexuality, because there’s a certain sense in which the deployment of sexuality is at odds with the deployment of alliance. If sexuality is something that is really just looking around for ways to get itself expressed, taking advantage of deployment where that’s a good thing and trying to resist deployment where that seems more like policing–if it’s just looking around for a way to get expressed, it’s not particularly interested in alliance. It’s not interested in the way in which relationships involving sexuality could settle into any kind of a coded pattern or system of regularity, so that there is this tension which, of course, gets itself expressed whenever, within the gay community, people strongly support gay marriage and see that as the politicized center of contemporary gay life; or people also in the gay community, many of them theoretically advanced, think of it as a non-issue or a side issue which loses track precisely of what Foucault calls the deployment of sexuality, simply trying to extend the domain, arguably a tyrannical domain, of the deployment of alliance–in other words, to redefine the basic concept of alliance in such a way that doesn’t really touch very closely on the deployment of sexuality. 

So it’s an interesting and rather mixed set of issues that the whole question, the whole sort of profoundly politicized question, of gay marriage gives rise to. So that’s what sexuality is [laughter] in Foucault.

Chapter 3. Performing Gender [00:14:53]

In Butler it’s just clearer that to ask the question–What is Sexuality? –  is–well, it’s just been a false start. We thought it was an innocent question, but you get into Butler and you see very clearly that you simply can’t be a certain sexuality. You can perform an identity, as we’ll see, by repeating, by imitating, and by parodying in drag. 

You can perform An Identity, but you can’t wholly perform sexuality precisely because of this element of psychic excess to which her thinking continues very candidly and openly and honestly to return. 

Butler’s work, in other words, is not just about “the construction of identity.” 

It’s not just about the domain of performance, as one might say. It acknowledges that there is something very difficult to grasp and articulate beyond performance. Its main business is to explain the nature and purview and purposes of performance, but it’s nevertheless always clear in Butler, as she returns to the question of the unconscious in particular, that there is something in excess of, or not fully to be encompassed by, ideas of performance.

So we’ve made a false start. We’ve asked a question we can’t answer, but at the same time we have learned certain things. We’ve learned certainly that sexuality, whatever it is, is more flexible and also in some sense more authentic–that is to say, closest to the actual nature of the drives. Yesterday Butler made a distinction between instinct and drive which I won’t go into because it had to do with her reflections on what is cultural and what is biological or not cultural in the life of the unconscious. For our purposes, whatever role sexuality may play in the unconscious, and however authentic–that is to say, however not culturally determined that role may turn out to be–it’s more flexible. That’s the important thing, more than any kind of social coding: the sort of coding, for example, that Foucault would indicate in speaking of alliance or deployed sexuality and the sort of coding that Butler refers to repeatedly as “gendering.”

Still, for both of them–and this is the other thing we’ve learned–even sexuality through deployment, or through the way in which it can get expressed in relation to gender and performance, is discursive. It’s a matter of discourse. It arises out of linguistic formations, formations that Foucault understands as circulated knowledge and that Butler understands, again, as performance. Foucault sees sexuality as the effect of power-knowledge, power as knowledge. Butler sees it as the effect–insofar as it’s visible, insofar as it is acted out–sees it as the effect of performance.

So now to take the way in which Butler makes this relationship between what one might suppose to be authentic, actual, all about one’s self, and that which is performed, that which is one’s constructs toward being a self, let’s take one of the most provocative sentences in her essay, which is on page 1711 about a third of the way down: “Since I was sixteen, being a lesbian is what I’ve been.” Now what she’s doing–remember at the very beginning of the essay she says that her whole purpose is to reflect, is somehow or another to register a politicized intervention in gender studies in terms of a philosophical reflection–on ontology, on “being.” What is it in other words, she says, to be something? 

Now what she’s doing in this sentence, which is an awkward-seeming sentence, “[B]eing a lesbian is what I’ve been,” is pointing out to us that to be something is very different from to be “being” something.

For example, I can say ‘I’m busy.’ (By the way, I am.) 

I can say “I’m busy’ and I expect you to take it that there’s a certain integrity, there’s a certain authenticity in the fact that I’m busy. 

Yes, I’m busy, but suppose you say, suspecting that I’m not really busy, “Oh, he’s being busy.” 

In other words, he’s performing busy-ness. He’s going around being busy, sort of imposing on me the idea that this lazy person is actually accomplishing something. 

So, the performance of being busy. But here’s the interesting point that Butler is making: the ontological realm is supposed to be about the simple being or existence of things, and it’s always in philosophy contrasted with agency, with the doing of things, with getting something done, with the performance of things. 

But what Butler is saying–and that’s why she says that she takes an interest in the ontological aspect of the question–what she’s saying is that there is an element of the performative which actually creeps into the ontological. Even being, she says, is something that in some measure–perhaps not altogether but in some measure–something we perform. Hence the doubling up of the word “being” in the sentence, “Since I was sixteen, being a lesbian is what I’ve been.”

In one sense, yeah, I am–that’s what I am, but in another sense I’ve been performing it. I’ve been being one. [laughs] I’ve been outing myself, if you will. I have been taking up a role that can be understood, as all roles can, intelligibly in terms of its performance. So that’s why she puts the sentence that way, and if you made a big mark in the margin and said, “Aha, got her! This is where she says she really is something. No more of this stuff about just constructivism, making oneself up as one goes along. This is where she says she really is something,” then you’re wrong. [laughs] She’s escaped your criticism because she says, “Oh, no, no, no. I have been being a lesbian: I’ve been being one, which is a different thing, although not altogether a different thing, from being one.” She is deliberately, in other words, on the fence between the sense of the ontological as authentic and her own innovative sense of the ontological as belonging within the realm of performance. She doesn’t want to get off the fence. She really doesn’t want to come down squarely on either side because for her–and this is what I like best about her work, even though it’s perhaps the most frustrating thing about it–because for her, what she is talking about is ultimately mysterious. She has a great deal to say about it, but she’s not pretending that in what she has to say about it she’s exhausted the “subject.” That’s why it seems to me to be admirable that she stays on the fence about this, and not simply an occasion for our frustration.

Chapter 4. The Political Agenda of Gender Theory [00:24:10]

So with all of this said–and mystification aside, if you will, as well–with all of this said, it seems plain that Foucault and Butler do have a common political agenda. Foucault is a gay writer who was, in the later stages of writing The History of Sexuality, dying of AIDS; Butler is a lesbian writer. Both of them are very much concerned for the political implications of their marginalized gender roles, while at the same time–of course, being theoretically very sophisticated about them. Their common political agenda is to destabilize the hetero-normative by denying the authenticity, or in Butler’s parlance “originality,” of privileged gender roles. In other words, who says heterosexuality came first? Who says the nuclear family is natural? Who says sexuality can only get itself expressed in certain ways that power-knowledge deploys for it? These are the sorts of questions, the politicized questions, which these discourses raise in common.

So it seems to me that they have a very broad agenda in common, and it also seems to me that they are very closely in agreement. I say that just in order to pause briefly on the moment in which they seem not to be. You’ve probably noticed that one text is referring to another at one point in your reading, and so let’s go there: page 1712, the right-hand margin. The context for this, of course, is Butler talking about Jesse Helms having deplored male homosexuality in attacking the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, and by implication, Butler argues, simply erasing female homosexuality because his diatribe pays no attention to it. Butler then complains that there’s a certain injustice in that because, in a way, it’s even worse, she says, sort of to be declared nonexistent than it is to be declared deviant. At least the male homosexual gets to be declared deviant : we’re simply erased. That’s the position she’s taking here, and then at that point, what she says is :

"To be prohibited explicitly is to occupy a discursive site from which something like a reverse-discourse can be articulated; to be implicitly proscribed is not even to qualify as an object of prohibition."

Here’s where she gives us a footnote on Foucault, footnote fifteen (you know we love footnotes) :

"It is this particular ruse of erasure which Foucault for the most part fails to take account of in his analysis of Power."

Butler’s argument is that in Foucauldian terms, there’s got to be discourse for there to be identity. Helms’s refusal of the category of “Lesbian” simply by omission – and of course, we know, by the way, that this is a refusal only by omission – Helms’s refusal of this category is, in other words, an erasure of discourse. No discourse, no identity. That is, in other words, what Butler is claiming Foucault’s position entails. Discourse creates power-knowledge. Power-knowledge creates identity. Therefore, where there’s no discourse, there can be no Identity, and since Helms has erased The Lesbian by refusing discourse about it, it must follow that there is no such thing as A Lesbian. That’s the implication of this footnote. 

To continue:

"He almost always presumes [and we must do honor to that word “almost”] that Power takes place through discourse as its instrument, and that oppression is linked with subjection and subjectivization, that is, that it is installed as the formative principle of the identity of subjects."

Now in defense of Foucault, let’s go to page 1632, the upper right-hand column, a passage that’s fascinating on a number of grounds. It’s rather long but I think I will read it, upper right-hand column. 

Foucault says :

"Consider for example the history of what was once “THE” great sin against nature. The extreme discretion of the texts dealing with sodomy – that utterly confused category – and the nearly universal reticence in talking about it made possible a twofold operation."

Okay. Here’s Foucault saying that this is a category. The homosexual identity, as understood in terms of sodomy, is a category. He’s going to go on to say that it’s punishable in the extreme by law, but in the meantime he’s saying there’s no discourse. 

There’s a kind of almost universal silence on the subject. 

You don’t get silence in Dante, as I’m sure you know, but in most cases in this period nobody talks about it. 

It’s punishable, severely punishable by law, and yet nobody talks about it. 

This would seem to violate Foucault’s own premise that discourse constitutes identity but also plainly doescontradict Butler’s claim that Foucault supposes that discourse always constitutes identity.

Let’s continue:

"… [T]he nearly universal reticence in talking about it made possible a twofold operation: on the one hand, there was an extreme severity (punishment by fire was meted out well into the eighteenth century, without there being any substantial protest expressed before the middle of the century) --

[Discourse is here failing also in that it’s not constituting a site of resistance, and nobody’s complaining about these severe punishments just as on the other hand nobody’s talking very much about them: there is, in other words, an erasure of discourse], 

" --and [he continues] on the other hand, a tolerance that must have been widespread (which one can deduce indirectly from the infrequency of judicial sentences, and which one glimpses more directly through certain statements concerning societies of men that were thought to exist in the army or in the courts)–"

In other words, he’s saying There was An Identity and that Identity was not – at least not very much – constituted by Discourse. 

As you read down the column, he’s going to go on to say that in a way, the plight of the homosexual got worse when it started being talked about. Yes, penalties for being homosexual were less severe, but the surveillance of homosexuality – the way in which it could be sort of dictated to by therapy and by the clergy and by everyone else who might have something to say about it – became far more pervasive and determinate than it was when there was no discourse about it. 

In a certain way, Foucault is going so far as to say silence was, while perilous to the few, a good thing for the many; whereas discourse which perhaps relieves the few of extreme fear nevertheless sort of imposes a kind of hegemonic authority on all that remain and constitutes them as something that power-knowledge believes them to be, rather than something that in any sense according to their sexuality they spontaneously are. It seems to me that this pointed disagreement with Foucault, raised by Butler, is answered in advance by Foucault and that even there, when you think about it, they’re really in agreement with each other. Foucault’s position is more flexible than she takes it to be, but that just means that it’s similar to her own and, as I say, that fact together with the broad shared political agenda that they have seems to me to suggest that they’re writing very much in concert and in keeping with each other’s views.

Chapter 5. Foucault’s Method, Butler’s Method 

[00:33:39]

Now in method they are somewhat different. Foucault is a more historical writer, although historians often criticize him for not being historical. The reason historians don’t think he’s historical is that he never really explains how you get from one moment in history to the next. He talks about moments in history, but he talks about them in terms of bodies of knowledge–“epistemic moments,” as he sometimes says. Then these moments somehow mysteriously become other moments and are transformed. The kind of causality that might explain such a thing from an historian’s point of view tends in Foucault’s arguments to be left out.

He nevertheless is concerned, however, with the way in which views of things change over time, and it’s the change in those views that his argument in The History of Sexuality tends to concentrate on; so that he can say that starting in the nineteenth century and continuing to the present, there are essentially four cathected beings around which power-knowledge deploys itself. He describes them as the hysterical woman, the masturbating child, the Malthusian couple–meaning the couple that is enjoined not to reproduce too much because the economy won’t stand for it, which is a way of, you see, of deploying alliance in such a way as to manipulate and control reproduction. That’s a moment, by the way, in which the deployment of alliance and the deployment of sexuality may be in league with each other, because obviously birth control and homosexual practices can also control reproduction. As you see, it’s not always a question of conflict between these two forms of deployment. So in any case, there’s the Malthusian couple and then the perverse adult, meaning the queer person in whatever form. He says about this–on page 1634 in the left-hand column–that you get these four types, and he says that therapy, the clergy, family, parental advice, and the various ways in which knowledge of this kind circulates have to do primarily with the preoccupation with, tension about, anxiety about these four types. 

The hysterical woman is determined to be hysterical once it begins to be thought that her whole being is her sexuality. 

The masturbating child violates the idea that children are born innocent and must be–because it suggests something terribly wrong about the cult of the innocent child that begins in the nineteenth century–it’s something that is subject to extreme and severe surveillance. 

“Who knows what will come of this?” 

Scientific thinking about masturbation had to do with the notion that it led to impotence, that by the time you got around to being in a relationship, there wouldn’t be anything there anymore. 

Just terrible thoughts–also it stunted your growth and you died sooner–just terrible, terrible thoughts about masturbation existed. All of this dominated the scientific literature until well into the twentieth century.

Then the Malthusian couple, which was primarily a phenomenon of what’s called “political economy” in the earlier nineteenth century but has prevailed, by the way, in what we suppose to be, and indeed what is, our progressive technology of the promotion of birth control around the world. “We must control population” is still the Malthusian principle on which we base the idea that people really need to be enlightened about the possibility of not just having an infinite number of children. Again you see that Foucault is right still to suppose that the notion of the Malthusian couple prevails among us. Then finally the perverse adult, who is first discoursed about in the nineteenth century, as the earlier passage that I read suggested, and is still, of course, widely discoursed about. Of course it now has a voice and discourses in its own right: a literature, a journalism and all the rest of it, and is in other words very much in the mainstream of discourse and still has controversy swirling around it, precisely because of the discursive formations that attach to it.

All of this Foucault takes to be in the nature of historical observation. For Butler on the other hand, as you can tell from her style–I am sure that, as in the case of reading Bhabha, you recognize a lot of Derrida in Butler’s style–in Butler it’s a question of taking these same issues and orienting them more in the direction of philosophy. I’ve already suggested the way in which she understands this particular essay as a contribution to that branch of philosophy called “ontology,” the philosophy of being. In general she takes a particular and acute interest in that. Her basic move is something that I hope by this time you’ve become familiar with and recognize and perhaps even anticipate.

For us, perhaps, the inaugural moves of this kind were the various distinctions made by Levi-Strauss. The one that I mentioned in particular–as accessible and I think immediately explanatory of how the move works–is “the raw” and “the cooked.” I tried to show that intuitively, obviously, the raw precedes the cooked. First it’s raw, then it’s cooked, and yet at the same time if we understand the relationship between the raw and the cooked to be a discursive formation, we have to recognize that there would be no such thing as the raw if there weren’t the cooked. If you talk about eating a raw carrot, you have to have had a cooked carrot. You don’t just pick up a carrot, which you’ve never seen before, and say, “This is raw.” The only way you know it’s raw is to know that it can be and has been cooked.

Well, this is the Butler move, the move that she makes again and again and again. What do you mean, the heterosexual precedes the homosexual? What do you mean, the heterosexual is an original and the homosexual is just a copy of it? Who would ever think of the concept of the heterosexual? You’re the only person on earth. You stand there and you say, “I’m heterosexual.” [laughs] You don’t do that. You just say, “Well, I have sexuality.” You could say that. If you had enough jargon at your disposal, you could say that, but you can’t say, “I am heterosexual.” You can’t have the concept heterosexual without having the concept homosexual. They are absolutely mutually dependent, and it has nothing to do with any possible truth of a chicken and egg nature as to which came first. In sexuality, the very strong supposition is for Butler that neither came first. They’re always already there together in that psychic excess with which we identify sexuality, but in social terms the idea that what’s natural is the heterosexual and what’s unnatural, secondary, derivative, and imitative of the heterosexual is the homosexual is belied simply by the fact that you can’t have one conceptually without the other.

It’s the same thing with gender and drag. Drag comes along and parodies, mimics, and imitates gender, but what it points out is that gender is always in and of itself precisely performance. This could, of course, take the form of a critique, I suppose, but we’re all quite virtuoso when it comes to performing. Here I am. I’m standing in front of you performing professionalism. I’m performing whiteness. I’m performing masculinity. I’m doing all of those things. I’m quite a virtuoso: what a performance! [laughter] Perhaps it’s kind of hard to imagine my standing here sort of exclusively performing masculinity as opposed to all the other things that I am performing, but okay, I’m certainly doing that too. I’m insecure about all of these things, Butler argues, because I keep performing them. In other words, I keep repeating what I suppose myself to be. I’m not comfortable in my skin, presumably, and I don’t just relax into what I suppose myself to be. I perform it. It is, in other words, a perpetual self-construction which does two things at once. It stabilizes my identity, which is its intention, but at the same time it betrays my anxiety about my identity in that I must perpetually repeat it to keep it going.

All of this is going on in this notion of performance, so what drag does is precisely bring all this to our attention. It shows us once and for all that that’s what’s at stake in the seemingly natural categories of gender that we imagine ourselves to inhabit like a set of comfortable old clothes. 

Drag, which is not at all comfortable old clothes, reminds [laughs] us how awkward the apparel of ourselves that we can call our identity actually is, and so it plays that role. The relationship between identity and performance is just the same. This notion of performing identity should recall for you “signifyin’ ” in the thinking of Henry Louis Gates. It should recall for you, in other words, the way in which the identity of another is appropriated through parody, through derision, through self-distancing, and through a sense of the way in which one issomething precisely insofar as one is not simply inhabiting the subject position of another.

It should also recall for you the “sly civility” of the subaltern in Homi Bhabha’s thinking: the way in which double consciousness is partly in the subject position of another, partly in one’s own in such a way that one liberates oneself from the sense that it’s the other person who is authentic and that one is oneself somehow derivative, subordinate, and dependent. All of these relations ought to gel in your minds as belonging very much to the same sphere of thought. The way in which you can’t have the raw without the cooked is the way in which, generally speaking, categories of self and other and of identity per se simply can’t be thought in stable terms in and for themselves, but only relationally.

Chapter 6. The Gendering of Reading [00:46:20]

Now “why is this literary theory?” you ask yourself, or you have been asking yourself. Of course, Butler gives the greatest example at the end of her essay when she says, “Suppose Aretha is singing to me.” “You make me feel,” not a naturalwoman, because there’s no such thing as natural. “You make me feel like a natural woman,” “you” presumably being some hetero-normative other who shows me what it is really to be a woman. Suppose, however, “Aretha is singing to me,” or suppose she is singing to a drag queen. That is reading. That’s reading a song text in a way that is, precisely, literary theory.

Now obviously I’m thinking of Virginia Woolf’s Mr. Ramsay in writing this sentence [gestures to sentence on chalkboard: “The philosopher in a dark mood paced on his oriental rug.”]. It’s a terrible sentence for which I apologize. Virginia Woolf never would have written it; but just to pass in review the way in which what we’ve been doing is literary theory: the Marxist critic would, of course, focus on “his” because the nexus for the Marxist critic in this sentence would be possession–that is to say, the deployment of capital such that a strategy of possession can be enacted. The African American critic would call attention to white color-coded metaphors, insisting, in other words, that one of the ways in which literature needs to be read is through a demystification of processes of metaphorization whereby white is bright and sunlit and central, and black, as Toni Morrison suggests in her essay, is an absence, is a negation, and is a negativity. This is bad, a dark mood. For the postcolonialist critic, obviously the problem is an expropriated but also undifferentiated commodity. By “Oriental” you don’t mean Oriental. You mean Kazakh or Bukhara or Kilim. In other words, the very lack of specificity in the concept suggests the reified or objectified other in the imagination or consciousness of the discourse.

Finally, for gender theory the masculine anger of the philosopher, Mr. Ramsay–you remember he is so frustrated because he can’t get past r; he wants to get to s, but he can’t get past r–the masculinized anger of the philosopher masks the effeteness of the aestheticism of somebody who has an Oriental rug. That in turn might mask the effete professorial type, that might mask an altogether too hetero-normative sexual predation and on and on and on dialectically if you read this sentence as an aspect or element of gender theory.

Okay. I will certainly end there, and next time we’ll take up the way in which what we’ve been talking about for a few lectures, the construction of identity and of things, which has obviously been one of the common features of this course, is theorized at an even more abstract level, with certain conclusions

Abu Qatada

From History Commons:

1995-February 2001: Monitored Al-Qaeda Leader and British Al-Qaeda Informant Raise Money for Chechen Rebels

Said Chedadi. [Source: Agence France-Presse]

Beginning in 1995, Barakat Yarkas, head of an al-Qaeda cell in Madrid, Spain, begins traveling frequently to Britain. Yarkas is being constantly monitored by Spanish intelligence (see 1995 and After) and they learn that his cell is raising money for the Islamist militants in Chechnya who are fighting the Russian army there. Yarkas and fellow cell member Said Chedadi solicit funds from Arab business owners in Madrid and then take the cash to radical imam Abu Qatada in London. Abu Qatada is coordinating fundraising efforts, and from June 1996 onwards, he is also working as an informant for British intelligence, although just how long and how closely he works for them is unclear (see June 1996-February 1997). [IRUJO, 2005, PP. 64-65] According to a later Spanish government indictment, Yarkas makes over 20 trips from Spain to Britain roughly between 1995 and 2000. He mostly meets with Qatada and Abu Walid, who an indictment will later call Abu Qatada’s right-hand man. From 1998 onwards, Spanish militant Jamal Zougam also travels occasionally to London to meet with Qatada. Investigators later suspect he travels with Yarkas on at least one of these trips. [INDEPENDENT, 11/21/2001; EL MUNDO (MADRID), 7/8/2005] From 1996 to 1998, an informant named Omar Nasiri informs on Abu Qatada and Walid for British intelligence (see Summer 1996-August 1998). Nasiri sometimes passes phones messages between the both of them and al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaida, and also reveals that Walid has been to al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. [NASIRI, 2006, PP. 265-282] Waild, a Saudi, apparently will be killed in Chechnya in 2004. [GUARDIAN, 10/3/2006] In February 2001, British police will raid Abu Qatada’s house and find $250,000, including some marked “for the Mujaheddin in Chechnya” (see February 2001). However, he will not be arrested, and it is not clear if he and/or Yarkas continue raising money for Chechnya after the raid. Chedadi will later be sentenced to eight years and Zougam will get life in prison for roles in the 2004 Madrid train bombings (see October 31, 2007). [AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, 1/26/2006]

Entity Tags: Said Chedadi, Omar Nasiri, Jamal Zougam, Abu Walid, Barakat Yarkas, Abu Qatada
Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Al-Qaeda in Spain, Abu Zubaida, 2004 Madrid Train Bombings, Remote Surveillance, Terrorism Financing, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Islamist Militancy in Chechnya

January 5, 1996: British Newspaper Links Bin Laden to 1995 Wave of Militant Attacks in France

Rachid Ramda. [Source: Public domain]

The London Times publishes one of the first Western newspaper articles about Osama bin Laden. The article says, “A Saudi Arabian millionaire is suspected of channeling thousands of pounds to Islamic militants in London which may have bankrolled French terrorist bombings.” Bin Laden is referred to as “Oussama ibn-Laden.” It says that he sent money to Rachid Ramda, editor in chief of Al Ansar, the London-based newsletter for the radical Algerian militant group the GIA. However, government sources say that the money ostensibly for the newsletter was really used to fund a wave of militant attacks in France in 1995 (see July-October 1995). Ramda was arrested in London on November 4, 1995 at the request of the French government. [LONDON TIMES, 1/5/1996] Two other people working as editors on the Al Ansar newsletter in 1995, Abu Qatada and Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, will later be found to be important al-Qaeda leaders (see June 1996-1997 and October 31, 2005). It will take ten years for Britain to extradite Ramda to France. He will be tried in France in 2005 and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1995 French attacks. [BBC, 10/26/2007] Bin Laden may have met with Ramda while visiting Britain in 1994 (see 1994). It will later be revealed that the 1995 attacks in France were led by an Algerian government mole (see July-October 1995), and the GIA as a whole was run by a government mole (see October 27, 1994-July 16, 1996).

Entity Tags: Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, Osama bin Laden, Groupe Islamique Armé, Rachid Ramda, Abu Qatada

Category Tags: Osama Bin Laden, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Algerian Militant Collusion, Abu Qatada

Suppressed History: CIA Support for 1990s Afghan Jihadi Training Camps and the 1993 WTC Attack

Abu Hamza al-Masri

"Abu Hamza al-Masri, who will later become a leading Islamic radical in Britain, travels to Afghanistan and, as he is a qualified civil engineer, helps with reconstruction efforts there after the Soviet withdrawal. He later receives paramilitary training at Darunta camp and loses his hands and the sight in one eye while practicing making explosives there. He is taken to Pakistan for emergency treatment, but refuses to hand over a set of passports he has to that country’s ISI intelligence agency, and flees to Britain with his family due to fears of a reprisal."

[O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 21-29]

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

In a Hollywood movie Hekmatyar would be the evil foil to the heroic Abdul Shah Masud. He would be an angry Islamic fundamentalist dressed in black, throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women and assassinating local tribal leaders that might rival his power. He would be the pawn of foreign secret service paymasters like the ISI, CIA, and Prince Turki of Saudi Arabia. He would unfeelingly sacrifice peasants for his cause, rocket the helpless civilians mixed in with his enemies, and his ruthless ambition would prevent the creation of a new peace. Unfortunately, in real life Hekmatyar was all these things.

Hekmatyar was one of the early Islamic rebels that came out of the University of Kabul. In the beginning Hekmatyar and Masud worked together. During the Soviet occupation Hekmatyar ran one of the two largest mujahideen organizations out of Peshawar in Pakistan. There he became the favorite of the Pakistani secret service, the ISI. Billions of dollars in US aid flowed through the ISI to Hekmatyar. Nervous CIA agents wondered whether Hekmatyar hated the United States as much as the Soviets, but the ISI assured them he was ok. United States money and weapons flowed to our enemy for over a decade.

When Masud finally defeated Najibullah in 1992, all the mujahideen factions converged on Kabul. Masud outwitted Hekmatyar and slipped into the city before him. A round robin of side-swapping, backstabbing, and massacre among Hekmatyar, Masud, Dostum, and Mazari followed. The citizens and buildings of Kabul were the big losers. The problem was that Masud could not be president as he was a Tajik, not a Pashtun. Afghan kings had been Pashtun for hundreds of years. Hekmatyar was the most powerful Pashtun, and had he not been such an evil sod, Masud might have accepted some kind of deal. In the end neither prevailed. The ISI switched support from the stalemated Hekmatyar and backed Mullah Omar, the new leader of the Taliban. Without ISI support, Hekmatyar’s men deserted wholesale to Mullah Omar, and he was a contender no longer.

Summer 1996-August 1998: British Mole Penetrates Militant Islamic Circles in London

Omar Nasiri, an agent of the British intelligence services MI5 and MI6, and the French service Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), penetrates radical Islamic circles in London, getting close to leading imams Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza (see Mid 1996-October 1997), learning about the Algerian Groupe Isamique Armé (GIA) (see November 1996), and dealing with al-Qaeda manager Abu Zubaida in Pakistan (see (Mid-1996) and (Mid-1996 and After)). Nasiri’s main task is to attend the main locations where radicals gather, Abu Qatada’s Four Feathers center and Abu Hamza’s Finsbury Park mosque, get close to senior operatives there to obtain information, and identify militants, even though the mosques, as Nasiri will later put it, are already “crawling with spies.” The British services are mostly interested in whether the radicals intend to attack in Britain, but, although they come close to inciting such attacks, they never cross the line. Nasiri will later comment: “[Abu Hamza] was inciting his followers to attack just about everywhere else, but never within England. He came very close to this line many times. He incited his followers to attack anyone who tried to claim Muslim land. He said many times that British soldiers and colonizers were fair game.” Nasiri, who previously received explosives training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan (see Mid 1995-Spring 1996), also gets his associates in Afghanistan to send him his notebook from an explosives course and passes this on to his handlers, who are impressed at how sophisticated the formulae are. However, after a couple of years the radicals realize he is an informer. In addition, on the day of the African embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998) he is so upset that he switches his mobile phone off for the first time since he received it, so MI5 stops trusting him. He will later write: “They must have worried that I was, in fact, a sleeper and that I had disappeared to pursue some mission. I couldn’t blame them of course. I was a trained killer. From the very beginning they hadn’t trusted me; I knew that.” He has to leave Britain and his career as an informer is practically over. [NASIRI, 2006, PP. 259-303]

Entity Tags: UK Security Service (MI5), UK Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Abu Hamza al-Masri, Finsbury Park Mosque, Omar Nasiri, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Abu Qatada

Category Tags: Abu Hamza Al-Masri, Abu Qatada, Other Possible Moles or Informants, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Algerian Militant Collusion


MI5 headquarters in London. [Source: Cryptome]

In June and December 1996, and again in February 1997, a British MI5 agent meets with radical Muslim imam Abu Qatada, hoping he will inform on his fellow extremists. Qatada is a Jordanian national who entered Britain in September 1993 using a forged United Arab Emirates passport, and was granted asylum in 1994.

Qatada Promises to Look after British Interests - In his meetings with the MI5 agent he claims to “wield powerful, spiritual influence over the Algerian community in London.” He says he does not want London to become a center for settling Islamic scores, and that he will report anyone damaging British interests. He says the individuals he has influence over pose no threat to British security, and promises that “he would not bite the hand that fed him.” He also promises to “report anyone damaging the interests of [Britain].” The MI5 agent records that “surprisingly enough—[Abu Qatada] revealed little love of the methodology and policies pursued by Osama bin Laden. He certainly left me with the impression that he had nothing but contempt for bin Laden’s distant financing of the jihad.”
[SPECIAL IMMIGRATION APPEALS COMMISSION, 1/2004 ; CHANNEL 4 NEWS (LONDON), 3/23/2004; GUARDIAN, 3/24/2004; LONDON TIMES, 3/25/2004]

Links to Al-Qaeda - Yet Qatada is later described as being a “key [British] figure” in al-Qaeda related terror activity. Around 1996, a highly reliable informer told US intelligence that Qatada is on al-Qaeda’s fatwa (religious) committee (see June 1996-1997). Videos of his sermons are later discovered in the Hamburg flat used by Mohamed Atta. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, who is later convicted in connection with the 9/11 attacks, are alleged to have sought religious advice from him.
[BBC, 8/11/2005; GUARDIAN, 8/11/2005]

Meetings Apparently Continue - Reportedly, after Qatada’s February 1997 meeting with the British agent, no further such meetings occur. [SPECIAL IMMIGRATION APPEALS COMMISSION, 1/2004 ] However, some French officials later allege that Qatada continues to be an MI5 agent, and this is what allows him to avoid arrest after 9/11 (see Early December 2001). [OBSERVER, 2/24/2002] It will later emerge that Bisher al-Rawi, a friend of Qatada, served as an informant and a go-between MI5 and Qatada in numerous meetings between late 2001 and 2002, when Qatada is finally arrested (see Late September 2001-Summer 2002). Furthermore, al-Rawi says he served as a translator between MI5 and Qatada before 9/11, suggesting that Qatada never stopped being an informant.
[OBSERVER, 7/29/2007]


(Mid-1996): French and British Intelligence Listen in on Al-Qaeda Communications, Asset Relays Messages for Al-Qaeda

Omar Nasiri, who informs on al-Qaeda for the British intelligence service MI6 and the French service Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DSGE), makes contact with al-Qaeda logistics manager Abu Zubaida using a telephone bugged by MI6. Nasiri met Abu Zubaida in Pakistan (see Mid 1995-Spring 1996). Usually, when Nasiri calls the number, he talks to one of Abu Zubaida’s associates, but sometimes he talks to Abu Zubaida himself. The phone is used to relay messages between Abu Zubaida in Pakistan and al-Qaeda representatives in London, in particular leading imam Abu Qatada. The French will apparently make great use of this information (see October 1998 and After).

[NASIRI, 2006, PP. 270-1, 273, 281]

Entity Tags: Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Abu Zubaida, UK Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Abu Qatada, Omar Nasiri
Category Tags: Remote Surveillance, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Other Possible Moles or Informants, Abu Zubaida, Abu Qatada


Mid 1996-October 1997: London-Based Imams Denounce GIA over Massacres

Leading London-based imam Abu Qatada denounces the Algerian GIA (Groupe Islamique Armé) over massacres of civilians the group has apparently conducted in Algeria, and severs ties with it. Fellow imam Abu Hamza al-Masri follows suit the next year. Abu Qatada says that support should no longer be provided to the GIA because they are declaring other Muslims infidels and killing them, although they are not learned men and do not have the authority to do this. This is highly controversial in the radical Islamic community in London, as some believe it is the government, not the GIA, that is carrying out the massacres, and Abu Qatada’s popularity declines. Abu Hamza initially defends the GIA, but, as the massacres get worse, support for the GIA in London ebbs. Eventually, Abu Hamza calls a GIA commander and asks for an explanation for a massacre. The commander says that the villagers were killed because they supported the moderate Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and Abu Hamza withdraws his support from the GIA a few weeks later. Omar Nasiri, who informs on Abu Hamza for French and British intelligence and listens in on the call to the commander, will later comment: “More than anything else, this episode proved to me that Abu Hamza was a sham. His objectives shifted with the wind. He needed the GIA to seduce followers away from Abu Qatada. Now, he saw that he might lose more than he gained by continuing to support it. For Abu Hamza, it was all about the zakat, the money he collected every week after the al-Jum’a prayers. The more people attended, the more cash there would be.”

[NASIRI, 2006, PP. 271-2, 275, 295-6] Bin Laden denounces the GIA around the same time (see Mid-1996).

March 1997: Hamburg Cell Member Zammar Is Monitored Getting Spanish Help to Meet Informant Abu Qatada in Britain

Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a member of the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell with three of the 9/11 hijackers, is monitored as he gets help in meeting al-Qaeda spiritual leader Abu Qatada in Britain. In March 1997, Zammar in Germany calls Barakat Yarkas in Spain. Yarkas is widely seen as the top leader of al-Qaeda in Spain, and Spanish intelligence is monitoring his calls. Telephone intercepts show that Zammar tells Yarkas, “I want to meet with brother Abu Qatada,” Zammar said, according to a transcript of the conversation. Yarkas replies, “Yes, I’ll talk to him and I’ll ask him.” Yarkas gives Qatada’s phone number to Zammar two days later. Zammar goes on to meet Qatada, but details of that meeting are unknown. [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 1/30/2003] Yarkas has been traveling to Britain for years, meeting with Qatada and giving him money (see 1995-February 2001). In 1996 or 1997, US intelligence learns that Qatada is a key spiritual adviser for al-Qaeda (see June 1996-1997). Shortly before Zammar’s call to Yarkas, British intelligence recruited Qatada as an informant, although he may not be a fully honest one (see June 1996-February 1997). It is unknown if Zammar’s visit with Qatada becomes known to US or German intelligence. Zammar may introduce Hamburg cell member Said Bahaji to Qatada, because Qatada’s phone number will be found in Bahaji’s address book shortly after 9/11 (see Shortly After September 11, 2001).

March 1997: Radical Imam Abu Hamza Becomes Friday Preacher at Leading London Mosque; Soon Takes it Over

Abu Hamza al-Masri, a leading radical and informer for Britain’s security services (see Early 1997), is given the prestigious Friday sermon spot at the large Finsbury Park mosque in London. He is suggested thanks to his work at a mosque in nearby Luton (see 1996) and at his interviews he manages to charm the mosque’s management committee, which is also pleased by his low financial demands.

Abu Qatada Rejected - The committee had also interviewed radical imam Abu Qatada, a well known scholar and author, for the position—Abu Qatada has militant links, but the committee is apparently not aware of them at this time. However, Abu Qatada told the committee that they should be grateful he was willing to take the job, demanding to see the mosque’s accounts and to receive 50 percent of all monies collected there. It is not known what Abu Qatada, an informer for British intelligence (see June 1996-February 1997), wanted to do with the money, but he is apparently a member of al-Qaeda’s fatwa committee (see June 1996-1997) and is linked to terrorism finance (see 1995-February 2001). Due to the mosque’s financial position, the committee does not offer the job to Abu Qatada.

Mosque Already Infiltrated by GIA - A group of Algerian radicals, many of whom are veterans of the Algerian Civil War and are members of the Algerian militant group the Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA), had already infiltrated the mosque, and the Algerians assist Abu Hamza after his appointment. One leading Algerian radical seen at the mosque is Ali Touchent, a suspected mole for the Algerian intelligence service (see November 1996).

Takeover - However, Abu Hamza soon begins to take the mosque away from the moderate trustees and turn it into a hotbed of radicalism. Initially, he claims that money has gone missing from a set of flats the mosque rents to tenants, then says that one of the flats is being used as a brothel and that one of the mosque’s old management team is taking a cut. Thanks to Abu Hamza’s exciting sermons, many more people attend the mosque, and there is not enough room to accommodate all of them in the main prayer hall. Abu Hamza makes money by selling tapes of his sermons, as well as videos of radicals fighting in Chechnya, Algeria, and Bosnia, in a shop he opens at the mosque.
[O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 36-43]


Entity Tags: Abu Hamza al-Masri, Abu Qatada, Finsbury Park Mosque, Groupe Islamique Armé
Category Tags: Abu Hamza Al-Masri, Abu Qatada, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Algerian Militant Collusion


March 1997-April 2000: French and British Informer Helps Security Services Track Moussaoui and Shoe Bomber Reid

Reda Hassaine. [Source: CBC]

Reda Hassaine, an Algerian journalist who informs for a number of intelligence services, including an Algerian service, the French Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), and the British Special Branch and MI5, helps intelligence agencies track Zacarias Moussaoui and shoe-bomber Richard Reid. One place Hassaine sees Moussaoui and Reid is the Four Feathers club, where leading Islamist cleric Abu Qatada preaches. [EVENING STANDARD, 1/28/2005; O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 133] Hassaine also sees Moussaoui, Reid, and Spanish al-Qaeda leader Barakat Yarkas at the Finsbury Park mosque in London. The mosque, a hotbed of Islamic extremism headed by Abu Hamza al-Masri, is the center of attention for many intelligence agencies. Hassaine does not realize how important these people will later become at this time, but recognizes their faces when they become famous after 9/11. [O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 133] British intelligence also monitor phone calls between Moussaoui and Reid in 2000 (see Mid-2000-December 9, 2000).

Entity Tags: Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Barakat Yarkas, Zacarias Moussaoui, UK Security Service (MI5), Special Branch (Britain), Abu Hamza al-Masri, Richard C. Reid, Reda Hassaine, Abu Qatada
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Al-Qaeda in Spain, Abu Qatada, Abu Hamza Al-Masri, Reda Hassaine, 2001 Attempted Shoe Bombing

August 1997-June 1998: London Imam Abu Qatada and Bin Laden Allegedly Help Wanted Militant Move to Britain

According to a November 2001 Spanish government indictment, in August 1997, a Syrian Islamist militant named Abu Bashir is arrested in Yemen and accused of plotting to assassinate the Yemeni deputy prime minister. He is soon deported to Malaysia. London imam Abu Qatada then contacts Osama bin Laden and asks him for his help to get settled with a job and house in Malaysia. Then, in June 1998, Spanish al-Qaeda leader Barakat Yarkas and Qatada arrange for Bashir to move to London. The Observer will report in March 2004 that Bashir apparently is still living in public housing in London. [OBSERVER, 3/21/2004] Presumably the Spanish government knows this because Spanish intelligence is heavily monitoring Yarkas at the time, and he is frequently meeting with Qatada in London (see 1995-February 2001). Qatada is working as a British government informant around this time (see June 1996-February 1997). The exact identity of Abu Bashir is not known as there are several al-Qaeda-linked figures with a similar name.

Entity Tags: Abu Qatada, Abu Bashir, Barakat Yarkas, Osama bin Laden

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Al-Qaeda in Spain, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism



Before October 1997: British Intelligence Informer Abu Hamza Runs Newsletter for Algerian Radicals

Leading radical imam Abu Hamza al-Masri edits the Al Ansar newsletter published for the Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA), a radical faction engaged in a bitter civil war with the Algerian government. It is unclear when Abu Hamza starts editing the publication, but it was previously edited by Abu Qatada, another leading radical London imam who broke with the GIA in the summer of 1996, so Abu Hamza may have started editing it then (see January 5, 1996 and Mid 1996-October 1997). It was also previously edited by Rachid Ramda, a suspect in bombings in France, and was reportedly financed by Osama bin Laden (see 1994). In the mid-1990s, the GIA commits a series of massacres of the civilian population in Algeria, apparently due to a change of the organization’s direction initiated by an Algerian government mole (see October 27, 1994-July 16, 1996). Abu Hamza, himself an informer for the British security services (see Early 1997), initially supports the GIA despite the massacres, although other senior Islamists such as bin Laden and Abu Qatada break with the group over the issue (see Mid-1996 and Mid 1996-October 1997). However, by the fall of 1997 worshippers at Finsbury park mosque in London, where Abu Hamza preaches, are so angry that he is forced to stop editing Al Ansar and sever his ties with the organization. What happens to Al Ansar after this is not known, but it presumably fades in importance as the GIA declines in importance as well. [O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 43]

Entity Tags: Groupe Islamique Armé, Abu Hamza al-Masri

Category Tags: Abu Hamza Al-Masri, Abu Qatada, Algerian Militant Collusion

Jordan requests the extradition from Britain of Abu Qatada, a cleric who sits on al-Qaeda’s fatwa committee (see June 1996-1997) and who is wanted in connection with a series of car bombings in Jordan. However, Britain, where Abu Qatada lives, declines the request and grants him asylum. Authors Sean O’Niell and Daniel McGrory will comment: “Britain had given shelter to one of the fiercest advocates of the global jihad. Abu Qatada lived and breathed the al-Qaeda ideology, issued religious decrees… allowing Algerian terrorists to commit mass murder in the name of God, and raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for Islamists to carry on the war against Russia in Chechnya.” [O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 29] Abu Qatada is working as an informant with Britain’s security services at this time (see June 1996-February 1997).

Entity Tags: Abu Qatada, Jordan

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism


1998: French Intelligence Mole Launches Pro-Islamist Newsletter

Reda Hassaine, a mole for the French intelligence service Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) who has penetrated militant Islamist circles in London (see Early 1997), launches an extremist newsletter to boost his standing. The project is expressly approved by his DGSE handler, who gives Hassaine £1,500 (about US$ 2,250) to fund the launch. The primary aim of the project is to bring Hassaine closer to Abu Qatada, a key militant leader in London. In addition to this, the newsletter enhances Hassaine’s position at the Finsbury Park mosque, a hotbed of Islamist radicalism, and he now has “free run” of it, enabling him to gather more information. He sees false documents being ordered and traded, stolen goods offered for sale, widespread benefit frauds organized, and credit card cloning taking place “on a cottage-industry scale.” Much of the money generated goes to various mujaheddin groups. He is also able to get access to militant communiqués before they are published, and he passes them to his French handler. The first edition of the newsletter, called Journal du Francophone, is entitled Djihad contre les Etats-unis (Jihad against the United States) and is accompanied by a photo of Osama bin Laden. The content is anti-American, anti-Israeli, and it is “full of florid praise for the mujaheddin.” [O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 134-135]

Entity Tags: Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Reda Hassaine, Finsbury Park Mosque

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Reda Hassaine, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism


August 22, 1998: Leading London-Based Radical Bakri Reveals Deal with British Authorities

When asked why militant Islamic groups based in London never attack in Britain, leading imam Omar Bakri Mohammed says that he has a deal with the British government: “I work here in accordance with the covenant of peace which I made with the British government when I got [political] asylum.… We respect the terms of this bond as Allah orders us to do.” [TERRORISM MONITOR, 7/7/2005] Bakri will confirm this in a later interview: “The British government knows who we are. MI5 has interrogated us many times. I think now we have something called public immunity.” [MEMRI, 10/24/2001] Authors Sean O’Neill and Daniel McGrory will point out that other London imams, such as Abu Hamza al-Masri (see Early 1997) and Abu Qatada (see June 1996-February 1997), had a similar arrangement: “The [imams] all claimed that Islamist radicals felt safe in London as they were protected by what they called the ‘covenant of security.’ This, they explained, was a deal whereby if extremist groups pledged not to stage attacks or cause disruption in [Britain], the police and intelligence agencies left them alone. British government ministers were appalled at the suggestion that they had entered into such a pact. But other countries were left to wonder aloud why [the British government] continued to ignore warnings that radical organizations were using London as a safe haven, and allowing these extremists to behave as if they were immune from prosecution.… To European eyes, these men seemed to do as they pleased.” [O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 108]

Entity Tags: Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, UK Security Service (MI5), Daniel McGrory, Abu Qatada, Sean O’Neill, Abu Hamza al-Masri

Category Tags: Abu Hamza Al-Masri, Abu Qatada, Omar Bakri & Al-Muhajiroun, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism


(April 1999): Radical London Imam Abu Qatada Convicted on Terror Charges in Jordan in Absentia

Radical London imam Abu Qatada is convicted in absentia on terrorism charges in Jordan. He is alleged to have masterminded a plot aimed at Western tourists. One bomb was discovered and defused outside the American School in Amman, the other, hidden in a car, exploded outside the Jerusalem Hotel, which is popular with US visitors. The prosecutor claimed that Abu Qatada, who was sentenced to life in prison, was the mastermind. [CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, 3/16/2004; O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 107-108; TIMES (LONDON), 4/15/2008] There were also to be bombs placed under the cars of a former intelligence chief and a former minister of the interior. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 4/15/2005]

Abu Qatada will also be convicted in connection with the Millennium Plot in Jordan later this year (see November 30, 1999). However, he will deny the charges, saying: “Jordan discovers every year or two nothing but organizations claiming that they wanted to cause explosions and destruction. It was proven later that the explosions inside the cinema were unfortunately the work of some intelligence officers to cause confusion.” [CNN, 11/29/2001]

Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law Mohamed Jamal Khalifa was deported from the US to Jordan in 1995 (see April 26-May 3, 1995), but Abu Qatada, who will be arrested in Britain in 2002 (see October 23, 2002), will still not have been deported to Jordan many years later, due to a drawn-out legal battle over his extradition.

Entity Tags: Abu Qatada

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism


Between 2000 and April 2001: Abu Qatada Linked to Al-Qaeda Cell in Milan, Italy

In 2000 through early 2001, Italian intelligence monitoring an al-Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy (see Early 2000-2001 and 2000-April 2001), hears operative Sami Ben Khemais citing instructions from London imam Abu Qatada. His comments include the statement: “Abu Qatada can convert anyone because he knows all religions, sects and philosophies. Abu Qatada has ordered all Muslims to spend their money on the cause of Allah, no matter how much money they have, thousands, millions, it’s not important. He says that money for God’s cause should be given to the mujaheddin, and not to the mosques.” [CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, 3/16/2004]

Abu Qatada had been working as an informant for British intelligence but it is unknown when the relationship ends (see June 1996-February 1997). Abu Qatada’s apartment is raided in February 2001, but it is unknown if that is before or after these comments are recorded (see February 2001). Ben Khemais is arrested in Italy in April 2001 (see 2000-April 2001).

Entity Tags: Sami Ben Khemais

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Al-Qaeda in Italy, Remote Surveillance, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism


2000-Early March 2004: Key Madrid Bomber Linked to London Imam Abu Qatada and Other Militants, but Is Not Arrested

Jamal Zougam. [Source: El Mundo]

By 2000, a Moroccan living in Spain named Jamal Zougam begins to attract the attention of Spanish intelligence. Barakat Yarkas frequently travels to London to meet with al-Qaeda-linked imam Abu Qatada, and Zougam accompanies Yarkas on at least one of these trips (see 1995-February 2001). Spanish intelligence is monitoring Yarkas and his cell, and they are aware that Zougam is introduced to Qatada as “a gifted young recruit.” [AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, 3/17/2004; IRUJO, 2005, PP. 77-79]

In June 2001, a French investigator warns that Zougam is an important militant with international links and advise the Spanish to arrest him (see June 2001). Around the same time, Spanish investigators learn that Zougam met with Mohammed Fazazi, a Moroccan imam who preached at the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg, Germany, that is attended by some of the 9/11 hijackers (see 1993-Late 2001). On August 14, 2001, Zougam is recorded telling Yarkas that he had offered Fazazi money for the jihad cause. Fazazi is also linked to Abu Qatada and had met him in London. After the May 2003 Casablanca bombings (see May 16, 2003), interest in Zougam increases as the Moroccan, Spanish, and French governments all suspect he was involved in those bombings. But he is still not arrested, and his surveillance in Spain is not increased, apparently due to lack of resources. [NEW YORK TIMES, 3/17/2004; OBSERVER, 3/21/2004]

In the days before the March 2004 Madrid train bombings (see 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004), Zougam makes about a dozen phone calls to contacts in London. He is said to talk to four al-Qaeda suspects, as well as a “radical London-based preacher” - a possible reference to Abu Qatada. Zougam will later be sentenced to life in prison for playing a direct role in the Madrid bombings. [DAILY MAIL, 11/1/2007]

After the Madrid bombings, British authorities will say that there was a “definite link” to Britain in the bomb plot. Zougam is believed to have made trips to London in search of funding, planning, and logistical help, and supplying equipment and false identification papers for the bombers. [INDEPENDENT, 3/19/2004]

One figure believed central to the bomb plot, Moutaz Almallah, will be arrested in London in 2005 and extradited to Spain in 2007 (see May 16, 2005).

Entity Tags: Jamal Zougam, Mohammed Fazazi, Abu Qatada, Barakat Yarkas, Moutaz Almallah

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Al-Qaeda in Spain, 2004 Madrid Train Bombings, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11


April 2000 and After: Most Defendants Convicted at Millennium Plot Trial in Jordan
The initial trial of militants accused of being involved in the 1999 Millennium Plot (see November 30, 1999) ends with convictions for most of the defendants, as 22 of the 28 accused are found guilty, with six acquittals and six death sentences. [NEW YORK TIMES, 1/15/2001; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 12/16/2002]

At the start of the trial, only 15 of the accused are present, the rest being tried in absentia. One is Algerian and another is Iraqi, although most are Jordanians of Palestinian origin. [INDEPENDENT, 4/21/2000]

The defendants include:

Abu Qatada, a senior militant cleric based in London, is sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison. He has already been convicted in another case in Jordan (see (April 1999)), but years later will not have been extradited from Britain. He is an informer for the British security services (see June 1996-February 1997). 

[ASSOCIATED PRESS, 4/15/2005]

Raed Hijazi, a radical with US connections and an FBI informer (see Early 1997-Late 1998), is one of those sentenced to death. [NEW YORK TIMES, 1/15/2001]

 However, after a number of appeals, his sentence will be reduced to 20 years in prison in 2004. [AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, 10/12/2004] 

In addition to Hijazi and Abu Qatada, the plot involved another two informers, Luai Sakra and Khalil Deek (see November 30, 1999), but these two are not put on trial. The involvement of four known informants could help explain why the plot was broken up.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is also tried for the plot, although he is not present at the trial (see 2001). [WASHINGTON POST, 10/3/2004]

Alleged militants Khader Abu Hoshar and Usama Husni are also tried and initially convicted.

Legal proceedings associated with some of the accused will grind on for years, with the case going back and forth with an appeal court, which twice finds that some of the convictions are covered by an amnesty. [JORDAN TIMES, 2/16/2005]

Entity Tags: Usama Husni, Raed Hijazi, Abu Qatada, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Abu Hoshar

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Millennium Bomb Plots, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism


Before April 21, 2000: British Intelligence Learns of Apparent Link between Top London-Based Militant and Bin Laden

Reda Hassaine, an informer for the British security service MI5, learns that a top London-based operative known as Abu Walid is to travel to Afghanistan. He also hears rumors that Abu Walid is to meet Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders and will not return to London after the meeting. The mission is so important that Abu Qatada, a leading imam who reportedly sits on al-Qaeda’s fatwa committee (see June 1996-1997) and also informs for MI5 (see June 1996-February 1997), is to hold a special prayer session to bless Abu Walid before he leaves. Hassaine attends the prayer session, but the militants realize he is an informant and attempt to murder him (see April 21, 2000). [O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 148]

French intelligence had previously considered assassinating Abu Walid in London, but he will be reported to be in Afghanistan after the US invasion and will die in Chechnya in 2004 (see 1997-1998).

Entity Tags: Abu Walid, Reda Hassaine, UK Security Service (MI5)
Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Reda Hassaine, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism


April 21, 2000: Militants Unmask British Intelligence Informer at Special Prayer Session, He Escapes

At the instructions of the British intelligence service MI5, informer Reda Hassaine goes to a meeting at the Four Feathers community center. The meeting is being held so that Abu Qatada, an al-Qaeda spiritual leader and also MI5 informer (see June 1996-February 1997), can bless an emissary named Abu Walid that London-based Islamists are sending to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. MI5 knows about the meeting thanks to information passed on by Hassaine (see Before April 21, 2000).

Hassaine arrives early, but finds Abu Qatada is already there, and the group is saying prayers for someone preparing to lay down their life for God, presumably Abu Walid. As the prayers end, Hassaine realizes some of the other men are looking at him strangely, and that they must have discovered he is a mole. The men attack him as he leaves, but he manages to get out of the building and they chase him down the street. He evades them and calls his MI5 handler, who tells him, “Go home and whatever you do don’t involve the police.” He then realizes that there were men at the meeting from numerous Islamist groupings throughout London, and that if he goes back to any place where extremists gather, he might not get away again. This ends his career as an informer. He occasionally runs into people who must know of the incident, and they make threatening gestures towards him. [O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 148-149]

Entity Tags: UK Security Service (MI5), Reda Hassaine, Abu Walid
Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Reda Hassaine, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism



After April 21, 2000: Informer Thinks British Authorities Do Not ‘Give a Sh*t’ Islamist Killers Live in London

After deciding to end his career as an informant against radical Islamists in London (see April 21, 2000), Reda Hassaine reflects bitterly on his experience of the British security services, MI5 and the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch:

“These guys I was risking my life for—they hadn’t arrested anybody, they didn’t do a proper job. All the work I had done, all the risks I took didn’t seem to amount to anything. All this killing was taking place abroad, but the British didn’t give a sh*t that the killers were here in London. As long as nothing happened in Britain, then everything was alright. Abu Hamza [al-Masri, another MI5 informer (see Early 1997)] was left to do whatever he liked, to brainwash, to recruit, and send people off to the training camps. I was telling the British this all the time. ‘This group is going to Afghanistan,’ I would say. ‘They’re leaving on Friday, they have tickets to fly to Pakistan.’ And the only reply I got was, ‘There’s nothing we can do about it.’”

'Harmless Clown'? - Hassaine will add:

“I wasn’t surprised. When I began to work with MI5 I already knew from the French that they would do nothing, that they weren’t interested in what was happening in London, the threat didn’t register. They told me that they thought Abu Hamza was a ‘harmless clown,’ but I felt obliged to carry on with the work. 

[Note: a group closely associate with Abu Hamza murdered some British citizens and others in Yemen in 1998 (see December 28-29, 1998).] 

I had started this thing, I wanted to pursue it. I later learned that Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada were both talking to MI5 and Special Branch too. The British must have thought they had these guys under control, that they were collaborating with them.”

'A Factory for Making Terrorists' - Hassaine will continue:

“Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Abu Hamza was busily recruiting hundreds of people, sending them off to Afghanistan, from where they were returning unnoticed and undetected to do whatever they like. Abu Hamza had this great big mosque where these people could hide, pick up a new identity, get money and support, and receive the blessing of the imam for their actions. Seven days a week that place was producing recruits for the jihad. It was a factory for making terrorists.” 

[O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 150-151]

Entity Tags: UK Security Service (MI5), Metropolitan Police Special Branch, Reda Hassaine, Abu Hamza al-Masri
Category Tags: Abu Hamza Al-Masri, Abu Qatada, Reda Hassaine, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism



February 2001: London Home of Prominent Al-Qaeda Imam Is Raided, Police Find Cash for Chechen Fighters

British police raid the house of radical London imam Abu Qatada and find the equivalent of $250,000 in cash under his bed. Abu Qatada claims that the money is for the construction of a new mosque. However, $1,174 is in an envelope marked “for the Mujaheddin in Chechnya.” [BBC, 8/11/2005]

At the time, Qatada has no money-making job and is living with a wife and four children on government benefits worth $150 a week plus other housing aid. [NEW YORK TIMES, 10/26/2002]

Spanish intelligence has known for years that al-Qaeda leader Barakat Yarkas has been frequently traveling to London and giving Qatada money for Chechnya that was raised in Spain (see 1995-February 2001).

It is not known it the Spanish shared this intelligence with the British. Authors Sean O’Niell and Daniel McGrory will later write, “

Jihad supporters have since confirmed that Abu Qatada was known throughout Britain as a conduit for funds destined for the Chechen fighters. Some of that money had been raised—directly and indirectly—in British mosques. There were straightforward appeals for the Chechen struggle, and rather more opaque pleas for charitable donations which were then siphoned off to the militants.”

[O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 67-8] 

Abu Qatada has a relationship with British counterintelligence (see June 1996-February 1997 and Early December 2001).

Entity Tags: Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade, Abu Qatada, Barakat Yarkas

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Islamist Militancy in Chechnya, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism


Shortly After September 11, 2001: Investigators Find Links between Informant Abu Qatada, Madrid Cell, and 9/11 Hijacker Cell in Hamburg

In searches conducted shortly after the 9/11 attacks, investigators discover direct links between the 9/11 hijacker cell in Hamburg and the Madrid al-Qaeda cell led by Barakat Yarkas. German police find Yarkas’s phone number in papers belong to 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. His number is also found in the diary of Hamburg cell member Said Bahaji.
[NEW YORK TIMES, 12/28/2001; IRUJO, 2005, PP. 150-153] 

Investigators also find many videos of sermons by Abu Qatada in the apartment where Atta and other members of the Hamburg cell used to live. Qatada is already closely linked to Yarkas and his Madrid cell (see 1995-February 2001).
[GUARDIAN, 8/11/2005]

Since Spanish intelligence had been monitoring Yarkas’s call since 1995 (see 1995 and After), it is unknown if they ever monitored a call between Yarkas and Atta or Bahaji. However, no such calls will be mentioned in subsequent trials in Spain. The Spanish did monitor numerous calls between Yarkas and Hamburg associates Mohammed Haydar Zammar and Mamoun Darkazanli (see August 1998-September 11, 2001). For years, the Spanish have merely been monitoring Yarkas’s cell. But after discovering these links, the decision is made to shut the cell down. Yarkas and others are arrested in November 2001 (see November 13, 2001).
[IRUJO, 2005, PP. 162-163] 

Qatada has been an informant for British intelligence since about 1997; it is unknown if he told his British handlers anything about the al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg (see June 1996-February 1997).

Entity Tags: Barakat Yarkas, Abu Qatada, Mohamed Atta, Said Bahaji
Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Abu Qatada, Al-Qaeda in Germany, Al-Qaeda in Spain


Late September 2001: Friend of Imam Abu Qatada Agrees to Become British Informant

Several weeks after the 9/11 attacks, two agents of MI5, the British equivalent of the FBI, meet with Bisher al-Rawi at his London house and try to recruit him to work as an informant. By one account, the meeting takes place one day after 9/11. Al-Rawi is an ideal candidate because he is well-educated, fluent in English, and a long-time friend of London imam Abu Qatada. [INDEPENDENT, 3/16/2006; WASHINGTON POST, 4/2/2006] 

Qatada himself has been working as an informant for MI5 since 1996 (see June 1996-February 1997). Al-Rawi will later claim that MI5 asked him to serve as an interpreter between MI5 and Arabic speakers several times before 9/11. He did so, including interpreting for Qatada. He will later comment,

‘On two occasions I asked the officers in private, “Is it OK to have a relationship with Abu Qatada? Is this a problem?’ And they always said, ‘No, it’s fine, it’s OK.’” 

Al-Rawi agrees to become an informant and begins regularly meeting with the two agents in hotel rooms around London.
[INDEPENDENT, 3/16/2006] 

For the next year, he will mostly work as a go-between between MI5 and Qatada. Presumably, it would be dangerous for the well-known imam to be seen meeting directly with British agents (see Late September 2001-Summer 2002).

Entity Tags: Bisher al-Rawi, UK Security Service (MI5), Abu Qatada
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives
Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Other Possible Moles or Informants



Late September 2001-Summer 2002: British Intelligence Uses Other Informant to Stay in Contact with Informant Abu Qatada While He Pretends to Go into Hiding

Bisher al-Rawi. [Source: Public domain]

In late September 2001, Bisher al-Rawi, a long-time friend of London imam Abu Qatada, agrees to become an informant for the British intelligence agency MI5 (see Late September 2001). Al-Rawi mainly works as an intermediary between MI5 and the high-profile imam. He will later explain that he agreed to work as an informant as an attempt to help ease tensions between the government and the Muslim community. Abu Qatada had begun working as an informant for MI5 in 1996 (see June 1996-February 1997), and contrary to some reports, his relationship with that agency had not yet ended. 

In December 2001, Abu Qatada reportedly disappears just before a new law passes that would allow his indefinite detention (see Early December 2001). British officials claim to have no idea where Abu Qatada is, and at first apparently they really do not. But al-Rawi soon finds out where he is, tells MI5, and begins passing messages back and forth between MI5 and Abu Qatada. 

[OBSERVER, 7/29/2007]

The Independent will later report,

“Abu Qatada was completely aware of Mr al-Rawi’s relationship with MI5. Mr al-Rawi carried questions and answers between the parties, served as a translator, and participated in negotiations with Abu Qatada.” 

Al-Rawi himself will later say, 

“All I did in Britain was try to help with steps necessary to get a meeting between Abu Qatada and MI5. I was trying to bring them together. MI5 would give me messages to take to Abu Qatada, and Abu Qatada would give me messages to take back to them.” 

[INDEPENDENT, 3/16/2006]

According to his family members and his lawyer, soon the MI5 agents are coming to his house and calling him so frequently that his relatives complain. As a result, MI5 gives him a cell phone and agrees to meet with him elsewhere. The British government will later acknowledge that al-Rawi served as an unpaid informant in a court document. 
[WASHINGTON POST, 4/2/2006] 

In the summer of 2002, al-Rawi begins to have doubts about his role and is fired (see Summer 2002). Abu Qatada is arrested in late October 2002, just after coming out of hiding in an attempt to morally justify the 9/11 attacks (see October 23, 2002). In early November, al-Rawi will fly to Gambia and be detained there (see November 8, 2002-December 7, 2002). 
[WASHINGTON POST, 4/2/2006]

Entity Tags: Abu Qatada, UK Security Service (MI5), Bisher al-Rawi

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Other Possible Moles or Informants, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism



October 21, 2001: Radical Imam Abu Qatada Claims British Intelligence Offered to Help Him Escape after 9/11

Radical al-Qaeda-linked imam Abu Qatada claims to The Observer that shortly after 9/11, the British intelligence agency MI5 offered him a passport, an Iranian visa, and an opportunity to escape to Afghanistan. He claims he turned them down because he didn’t trust them. 

“If I get on a plane, I am afraid I will be shot or handed over to the Jordanians, the Egyptians, or the Saudis.” 

[OBSERVER, 10/21/2001] 


Abu Qatada’s claim will gain credibility when it is later revealed that he was an MI5 informant (see June 1996-February 1997) and that MI5 hid him in Britain from December 2001 until he made comments supporting the 9/11 attacks in late 2002 (see Early December 2001 and October 23, 2002).

His fear of being handed over will also gain credibility as the CIA’s rendition program is slowly made public in succeeding years.

Entity Tags: Abu Qatada, UK Security Service (MI5)

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism



November 13, 2001 or Shortly Before: Spanish Judge Issues Indictment against Spain-Based Radicals, Names British Intelligence Informer Abu Qatada as Militant Spiritual Leader in Europe

Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon issues an indictment of militants based in Spain who are said to be tied to the 9/11 attacks. Some of them are arrested soon after (see November 13, 2001), although some are not and go on to be involved in the Madrid train bombings (see November 13, 2001). In the indictment, Garzon highlights the links between the Spain-based operatives and militants in Britain. Leading London imam Abu Qatada is described as “the spiritual head of the mujaheddin in Europe,” a view shared by many intelligence agencies in Europe, and accused of moving money to finance al-Qaeda operations. The indictment also says that Barakat Yarkas, head of an al-Qaeda cell in Spain, visited Britain 20 times (see 1995-February 2001) and repeatedly met with Abu Qatada and three other al-Qaeda leaders in Britain, Abu Walid, Abu al-Hareth, and Abu Bashir. Abu Qatada has been working with the British security services for some time and continues to do so (see June 1996-February 1997, Early December 2001, and October 23, 2002). [INDEPENDENT, 11/21/2001; THE INDEPENDENT, 11/21/2001; O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 107] Authors Sean O’Neill and Daniel McGrory will write, “Judge Garzon in Spain claims that if you take every major al-Qaeda attack, including 9/11 and the Bali bombings, then list all those who played a part in their planning, funding and execution, you will find a line that always draws you back to Britain.” [O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 112]

Entity Tags: Abu al-Hareth, Abu Qatada, Abu Bashir, Abu Walid, Baltasar Garzon

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Al-Qaeda in Spain, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism



Early December 2001: Al-Qaeda ‘Puppet Master’ Abu Qatada Disappears in Britain

Abu Qatada. [Source: Public domain]

Al-Qaeda religious leader Abu Qatada disappears, despite being under surveillance in Britain. He has been “described by some justice officials as the spiritual leader and possible puppet master of al-Qaeda’s European networks.” [TIME, 7/7/2002] He supposedly escapes from his house, which the police are monitoring, in a minivan with his heavily pregnant wife and four children. [LONDON TIMES, 10/25/2002; O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 108] Qatada had already been sentenced to death in abstentia in Jordan, and is wanted at the time by the US, Spain, France, and Algeria as well. [GUARDIAN, 2/14/2002] In October 2001, the media had strongly suggested that Qatada would soon be arrested for his known roles in al-Qaeda plots, but no such arrest occurred. [LONDON TIMES, 10/21/2001] In November, while Qatada was still living openly in Britain, a Spanish judge expressed disbelief that Qatada hadn’t been arrested already, as he has previously been connected to a Spanish al-Qaeda cell that may have met with Mohamed Atta in July 2001. [OBSERVER, 11/25/2001] Time magazine will later claim that just before new anti-terrorism laws go into effect in Britain, Abu Qatada and his family are secretly moved to a safe house by the British government, where he is lodged, fed, and clothed by the government. “The deal is that Abu Qatada is deprived of contact with extremists in London and Europe but can’t be arrested or expelled because no one officially knows where he is,” says a source, whose claims were corroborated by French authorities. The British reportedly do this to avoid a “hot potato” trial. [TIME, 7/7/2002] A British official rejects these assertions: “We wouldn’t give an awful lot of credence [to the story].” [GUARDIAN, 7/8/2002] Some French officials tell the press that Qatada was allowed to disappear because he is actually a British intelligence agent. [OBSERVER, 2/24/2002] It appears that Qatada held secret meetings with British intelligence in 1996 and 1997, and the British were under the impression that he was informing on al-Qaeda (though there is disagreement if he was misleading them or not) (see June 1996-February 1997). Qatada will be arrested in London on October 23, 2002 (see October 23, 2002).

Entity Tags: Algeria, Al-Qaeda, Abu Qatada, United Kingdom, Mohamed Atta, Central Intelligence Agency, Jordan, France, Spain

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11



April 2002: Al-Zarqawi Said to Head Militant Group Competing with Al-Qaeda

Shadi Abdellah. [Source: Associated Press]

In April 2002, Shadi Abdellah, a militant connected to the al-Tawhid group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is arrested by German police. Abdellah also briefly worked as one of bin Laden’s bodyguards (see Early 2001). He begins cooperating with German authorities. He reveals that al-Zarqawi is not a part of al-Qaeda but is actually the founder of al-Tawhid, which he says works “in opposition” to al-Qaeda (see 1989-Late 1999). The aim of the group is to kill Jews and install an Islamic regime in Jordan. The group is not really interested in the US, and this is the key ideological difference between it and al-Qaeda. Abdallah recounts one instance where al-Zarqawi vetoed a proposal to share charity funds collected in Germany with al-Qaeda. According to Abdallah, al-Zarqawi’s organization had also “competed” with al-Qaeda for new recruits. He also reveals that al-Zarqawi’s religious mentor is Abu Qatada, an imam openly living in Britain. [INDEPENDENT, 2/6/2003; NEWSWEEK, 6/25/2003; BERGEN, 2006, PP. 356-358] A German intelligence report compiled in April 2002 based on Abdellah’s confessions further states that “Al-Zarqawi mentioned to Abdellah that the possibility of a merger conflicted with the religious orientation of [Mahfouz Walad Al-Walid (a.k.a. Abu Hafs the Mauritanian)] who was responsible within al-Qaeda for religious or Islamic matters, which contradicted the teachings practices by al-Zarqawi.” [BERGEN, 2006, PP. 359-422] Newsweek will later report that “several US officials” claim “they were aware all along of the German information about al-Zarqawi.” [INDEPENDENT, 2/6/2003] Nonetheless, Bush will claim in a televised speech on October 7, 2002 (see October 7, 2002) that a “very senior al-Qaeda leader… received medical treatment in Baghdad this year,” a reference to al-Zarqawi. And Colin Powell will similarly state on February 5, 2003 (see February 5, 2003) that “Iraq is harboring the network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants.” Both statements are made even though “US intelligence already had concluded that al-Zarqawi was not an al-Qaeda member…” [BBC, 2/5/2003; US DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 2/5/2003; WASHINGTON POST, 6/22/2003 SOURCES: UNNAMED US INTELLIGENCE SOURCES]


Jamil al-Banna is friends with Bisher al-Rawi, who is working as an informant for the British intelligence agency MI5. Al-Rawi is mostly helping MI5 communicate with imam Abu Qatada, who also is an MI5 informant but is pretending to be in hiding (see Late September 2001-Summer 2002 and Early December 2001). Al-Banna is aware of al-Rawi’s work and begins to help him. Sometimes al-Banna also serves as a go-between for MI5 and Abu Qatada. Al-Rawi stops working for MI5 in the summer of 2002 (see Summer 2002), but al-Banna does not. For instance, when Abu Qatada is arrested in late October 2002 (see October 23, 2002), al-Banna takes his wife and child home at the request of the British officials on the scene. [INDEPENDENT, 3/16/2006] But in early November 2002, al-Banna will go to Gambia with al-Rawi on business, and MI5 will turn the two of them over to the CIA to be interrogated (see November 8, 2002-December 7, 2002).

Entity Tags: UK Security Service (MI5), Abu Qatada, Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil al-Banna

Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

Category Tags: Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Abu Qatada, Other Possible Moles or Informants



Summer 2002: Informant Helping British Intelligence Communicate with Abu Qatada Has Doubts and Is Fired

Bisher al-Rawi, an informant for the British intelligence agency MI5, begins to have doubts about his informant work. He is mostly helping MI5 communicate with imam Abu Qatada, another MI5 informant who is pretending to be hiding from the authorities (see Late September 2001-Summer 2002). Al-Rawi is concerned that he might incriminate himself by talking to people who have links to terrorism, and is also concerned that his role as an informant could be publicly exposed. He suggests holding a meeting between his MI5 handlers and a private attorney, and specifically suggests using human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce. However, his MI5 handlers refuse and instead have him meet with an MI5 lawyer known only by the alias “Simon.” Simon assures him that MI5 would come to his aid if he is compromised or has other problems. Al-Rawi will later recall: “[Simon] gave me very solid assurances about confidentiality. He promised they would even protect me and my family if they had to. He said that, if I was ever arrested, I should cooperate with the police. If a matter got to court, he would come as a witness and tell the truth.” Some agents are beginning to have doubts that he is carrying out all their orders, and he brings up the idea of ending the relationship. Then one day one of his MI5 handlers calls him and terminates his MI5 work. [INDEPENDENT, 3/16/2006; OBSERVER, 7/29/2007] Several months later, MI5 will betray him and turn him over to the CIA to be interrogated in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo (see December 8, 2002-March 2003 and March 2003-November 18, 2007).

Entity Tags: UK Security Service (MI5), Abu Qatada, Bisher al-Rawi, “Simon”

Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

Category Tags: Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Abu Qatada, Other Possible Moles or Informants

August 2002: Radical Imam Abu Qatada Has Alleged Madrid Bomber Live with Him in London
It will later be alleged that in August 2002, radical imam Abu Qatada calls Spanish militant Moutaz Almallah and asks him to live with him in London. Almallah does move to London one month later. For most of 2002, Qatada is supposedly hiding in London, but in fact British intelligence knows where he is (see Late September 2001-Summer 2002 and Summer-Early November 2002), and he has a history of being an British informant (see June 1996-February 1997). The account of Moutaz moving to London comes from the estranged wife of his brother Mouhannad Almallah. Shortly after the Madrid bombings, she will tell a Spanish judge about the call and much more. She will say both brothers had frequent contact with Abu Qatada before moving. Spanish authorities also are aware that the brothers are linked to Barakat Yarkas, who frequently traveled to London to meet with Abu Qatada for many years (see 1995-February 2001). Abu Qatada will be arrested in October 2002, not long after Moutaz moves there (see October 23, 2002), but Moutaz will continue to live in London while making occasional trips back to Spain. Moutaz will be arrested in Britain in 2005. He will be extradited to Spain for a role in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, but will not have been put on trial by July 2007. In 2007, Mouhannad will be sentenced to 12 years for his role in the bombings (see October 31, 2007). [EL MUNDO (MADRID), 7/28/2005]

Entity Tags: Mouhannad Almallah’s wife, Abu Qatada, Barakat Yarkas, Mouhannad Almallah, Moutaz Almallah

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Al-Qaeda in Spain, 2004 Madrid Train Bombings, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism



October 23, 2002: London Imam Abu Qatada Arrested Shortly after Praising the 9/11 Attacks
London imam Abu Qatada is arrested at a house in South London by Scotland Yard and MI5 officials. Intelligence agencies in eight countries, including Italy, France, and Germany, have claimed that Qatada has extensive al-Qaeda links, and he is believed to be a member of al-Qaeda’s fatwa (religious) committee (see June 1996-1997). Using anti-terrorist laws passed in December 2001, he is held at the Belmarsh high security prison without charge. He “disappeared” hours before the new laws went into effect (see Early December 2001). Several days before his arrest, Qatada came out of hiding to release a new document justifying the 9/11 attacks. He posted a ten-page document on the Internet entitled “The Legal Vision for the September 11 Events.” In it, he outlined the “moral” case for the attacks and praised Osama bin Laden for challenging the US. [LONDON TIMES, 10/25/2002] Another radical London imam, Sheik Omar Bakri Mohamed, tells the press that Abu Qatada was arrested after family members visited his house and one of them used a cell phone that was apparently traced by the authorities. [NEW YORK TIMES, 10/26/2002] Qatada worked as an MI5 informant beginning in 1996 (see June 1996-February 1997).

Entity Tags: Abu Qatada, UK Security Service (MI5), Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Key Captures and Deaths




9:05 p.m., April 3, 2004: Seven Key Madrid Bombers Blow Themselves Up

The explosion in the Leganes apartment. [Source: Associated Press]

The March 2004 Madrid train bombings were not suicide bombings (see 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004), and most of the key bombers remain in Spain, holed up in an apartment in the town of Leganes, near Madrid. The police surrounded them in the early afternoon and a several hour shootout began (see 2:00-9:00 p.m., April 3, 2004). GEO, an elite police unit, arrives around 8:00 p.m. The head of GEO will later testify that he decides to assault the apartment immediately because of reports they have explosives. The entire area has already been evacuated. There reportedly is some shouting back and forth, but no negotiations. One of the bombers reportedly shouts, “Enter, you suckers!” At 9:30, the GEO unit knocks down the door to the apartment with explosives and throws tear gas into the room. But the bombers are reportedly huddled together and blow themselves up. One GEO agent is also killed in the explosion. The bombers killed are: Allekema Lamari, Serhane Abdelmajid Fakhet, Abdennabi Kounjaa, Arish Rifaat, Jamal Ahmidan (alias “El Chino”), and the brothers Mohammed Oulad Akcha and Rachid Oulad Akcha. Others are believed to have escaped during the shootout. [NEW YORKER, 7/26/2004; IRUJO, 2005, PP. 360-361; EL MUNDO (MADRID), 3/22/2007] Lamari, Fakhet, and Ahmidan are thought to have been the top leaders of the plot. [BBC, 3/10/2005] It will later emerge that close associates of both Fakhet and Lamari were government informants (see Shortly Before March 11, 2004), and that Spanish intelligence specifically warned in November 2003 that the two of them were planning an attack in Spain on a significant target (see November 6, 2003). Furthermore, Fakhet himself may have been a government informant (see Shortly After October 2003).

Entity Tags: Serhane Abdelmajid Fakhet, Rachid Oulad Akcha, GEO, Mohammed Oulad Akcha, Arish Rifaat, Abdennabi Kounjaa, Abu Qatada, Allekema Lamari, Jamal Ahmidan

Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Al-Qaeda in Spain, 2004 Madrid Train Bombings, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11


March 11-August 11, 2005: London Imam Abu Qatada Released and Arrested Again
By 2005, al-Qaeda-linked imam Abu Qatada has been held in a high-security prison in Britain for three years without being charged. On March 11, 2005, he is released after a British court rules that the law under which he was being held allowing indefinite detention without trial is a struck down as a violation of human rights. A government official calls Abu Qatada a “truly dangerous individual,” but says there is no choice but to release him. Abu Qatada is given stringent bail conditions, including a daily curfew, electronic tagging, and a prohibition on preaching or leading prayers. On August 11, he is arrested again. British authorities announce they are planning to extradite him to Jordan, where he was sentenced to life in prison in absentia in 2000 for a role in the planned millennium bombings there. [LONDON TIMES, 3/11/2005; FOX NEWS, 8/11/2005]

As of 2008, Abu Qatada is still in a British prison, appealing the extradition order.